Wanted: Immediate Parenting Abilities
by The Eclectic Bookworm
Summary: AU. Eighteen-year-old James Potter is faced with an immensely challenging task. Harder than jinxing Snivellus with his eyes closed? Yep. Harder than keeping a werewolf under control? Pretty much. Harder than winning Lily Evans? We-ell, maybe. What he has to do? Raise his new daughter, Aurelia, with the help of his new wife Lily and the rest of the Marauders. This'll be pretty hard.
1. Why You Don't Need Cameras For Babies

**So this is the prequel to my story No, Seriously, meaning that it'll be updated FAR less frequently. I'd recommend checking out No, Seriously seeing as this is third-priority (after my Ronks story and No, Seriously)**

**But still, it's nice, and you don't have to read No, Seriously for this to make sense. It's going to end when Aurelia is probably around three years old.**

**This is going to be a very fluffy story, so be prepared.**

* * *

"You're kidding."

His voice was a little shaky, but under those circumstances anyone's would have been.

Lily smiled softly. "No, I'm not. And I know we've only just graduated, and we're barely married, but this is utterly wonderful. Isn't it?" she added with a hint of anxiety.

James nodded distantly. "I just...Wow. You're...wow. I. Oh wow." Gently he took her into his arms. before yelling "THIS IS SO EXCITING!" and then "I have to owl everyone I know. EVERYONE."

Lily smirked. "I was rather hoping you would take that approach, to be honest." She leaned in and tried to place a soft kiss on his lips, but James had already let go and had run over to bounce up and down on the bed.

"We're-" -bounce- "-going-" -bounce- "-to-" -bounce- "-be-" -bounce- "-parents!"

"Damn it, James, I just changed the sheets!" Lily glared angrily up at her husband.

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE NOT COUNTING MY WEDDING NIGHT!"

"Oh for Merlin's sake. You compare _everything_ to that night."

"YES! YES! YES!"

"_Must _you be so dramatic? I'm happy too, but having a baby does _not _mean one gets to jump on my bed."

"It's my bed too!" James jumped off the bed happily and ran over to his wife, spinning her around gaily. "This is amazing news, I'm going to throw the most epic bash, and everyone but you is going to get drunk."

"Not counting Moony," Lily gently corrected.

"Wha-Oh. Oh yeah. He's still in the depths of despair after that breakup. Did he say he's sworn off alcohol again?"

"Goodness knows how long that'll last. And at a baby shower, people don't usually get drunk."

James pulled a face. "So it's a boring party. All right. When your boring party's going on I'm going to throw an infinitely more amazing bash at some Muggle pub."

"You know, a wife should be more surprised at a statement like that." Lily leaned forward again, and this time got her kiss.

* * *

Two months later-October twelfth-might have ended in disaster if not for James' quick thinking. He had prepared all sorts of potions for every sort of pregnancy disaster, and one of them had happened to be something to counteract a miscarriage. Basically, if the mother drank the potion when she was miscarrying, the child's growth would be sped up and the miscarriage would turn into birth. However, this was supposed to be used only for emergencies and only during miscarriage. It caused a lot of strain on both mother and child.

Lily felt the pain in her stomach and had a suspicion of what might be going on, so she alerted James. He was sitting at the dining room table and drinking coffee happily, looking elated as usual. She felt a pain in her stomach (or maybe that was the baby) at the look on his face that she was certain she was about to shatter.

"James?"

"Yes, flower?" He'd caught the fear in her voice, and stood up. "What is it?"

"I-" Her voice trembled slightly. "I think I'm miscarrying."

James stared at her for a moment, then replied shakily, "Go upstairs and look through my drawer. Drink the blue potion marked 'For Emergencies Only' and lie down on the bed. I'll take care of the rest, all right?"

"All right," Lily echoed.

Maybe it was just a stomachache, maybe it was the beginning of a miscarriage. It would never be established, because Lily drifted into unconsciousness as the potion did its work.

* * *

She opened her eyes, feeling horribly muzzy. Sort of like a hangover times ten. Her vision was a little blurry, but she blinked a few times and the rose wallpaper on the ceiling came into focus.

Someone was gripping her hand very tightly.

"Lils," breathed James, and she heard the joy in his voice, "Lils, _meet our little girl._"

She sat straight up in bed before flopping back down with a grimace. James laughed gently and helped prop her up with pillows.

She'd expected the Marauders to be there, but they weren't. James hadn't invited them, because he'd wanted her to have privacy. She found that sweet.

And then, oh, and then, a little bundle was handed to her, and enormous brown eyes blinked sleepily up from James' old baby blanket.

"Oh Merlin," mumbled Lily tearfully. "Oh Merlin, James, oh my sweet little golden girl. That's Mummy's little sweetheart, right there."

"Yeah." James was smiling broadly now. "What'll we call her?"

* * *

"Sirius-etta!" Sirius stated proudly, as if he had just come up with the most genius baby name in the entire world.

Remus rolled his eyes from where he was holding the baby. He seemed enamored by her, and Lily could really see why. Her little golden girl was something special.

"Oh, come off it, Padfoot," called James from his seat next to Remus. "You're already godfather and now you want to name her too?"

"Belle, because she's beautiful?" suggested Peter lamely.

"Aww, Peter, that's so sweet!" cooed Lily happily, planting a kiss on his cheek. James muttered something profane under his breath and went back to watching Remus closely so as to make sure he didn't drop the baby.

"What'd I say?" asked Peter curiously.

"She looks like Lils, according to these pictures," Sirius explained, holding up an album entitled _Our Lily's First Year._

"Hey, you prat, give that back!" snapped Lily angrily, and when Remus made a move to hand her the baby, she hastily added a "No, not you, Remus."

Sirius grinned. "Ah, Lily was a treasure when she was little. She seemed to enjoy nappy hats most splendidly, possibly unaware that nappies go on your-"

"Not in front of the baby!" interjected Lily, James, and Remus at the same time, James covering the baby's ears carefully.

Their ebony-haired friend rolled his eyes dramatically. "She's a Marauder now. She's going to be hearing a lot of swearing from now on."

Lily gave him a look that made Remus and James both wince.

Sirius quailed, then handed Lily back her photo album. "_Damn,_ Potter. You have scary eyes."

"Aurelia," came a very quiet voice. "It means golden."

Lily, James, Sirius, and Peter all turned to stare at Remus, who wasn't looking at them. Instead, he was smiling down at the baby as if she was the best thing in the world.

Lily grinned suddenly. "You know, I think I like Aurelia. It fits. Aurelia Potter."

"Aurelia Lily Potter," James added, "because we want her to be as sweet and lovely as you."

"Awww," chorused Sirius and Remus teasingly, the former tacking on a "Prongs went all spoony on us."

"Oi, shut up!" shouted James, grabbing a couch pillow and hurling it at Sirius.

"Well," muttered Lily, striding across the room to take Aurelia into her arms, "I think I'm going to leave you boys to it, seeing as I don't want my daughter to get decapitated by a pillow."

Aurelia snuggled into her arms.

* * *

"Okay, _cheese!_ No, wait… _Cheese!_ Ah damn, I hate cameras." James tossed the camera across the room. "Come on, Little Lily, do something besides sit there and stare up at that blasted mobile."

Aurelia didn't move.

"You didn't hear me, did you?"

"I think she doesn't understand you yet," replied Lily dryly from where she was organizing the set of baby books.

"Merlin, sometimes I hate this baby. Ever so active when I turn off the camera. Look at that! She blinked! She doesn't blink when I'm trying to photograph her, and now she's blinking up a storm. This is unjust." James glared at Aurelia, who blinked again.

Lily hid a smile.

"Not to mention that she's better looking than me."

This was too much for the mother of Aurelia Lily Potter, who fell off her chair in a giggle fit. The father of Aurelia Lily Potter responded by taking his daughter out of the crib and tackling Lily in a (gentle, so as not to squish Aurelia) hug.

"We're an Aurelia sandwich!" he proclaimed, which Lily found hysterical until Aurelia started crying.

* * *

**Reviews?**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


	2. Why We Shouldn't Show Sinks To Aurelia

**Hope you enjoy! This one's very fluffy, so read at your own risk.**

* * *

James Potter by all rights should have been asleep. And he would be asleep if he was in control of his life, but sadly one word was changing all that. A rather onomatopoeic word, to tell the truth.

"WAAAAAAAAAH!"

Lily, now half-awake, groaned and rolled over in bed, grabbing James' pillow and shoving it over the edge of their king-sized bed. This was Phase One of her rather clever strategy of getting him out of bed.

As James fumbled for the pillow, he felt the covers yanked off of him by his sleepy wife.

Phase Two.

"Oh Merlin, Lils, I hate you so, so much right now," James mumbled drowsily, before falling out of the bed with a loud crash. This made Aurelia cry louder from next to the bed.

James pulled himself up and walked over to the garishly pink plastic cradle, taking his baby daughter out of it. She was screaming her tiny head off.

Lily mumbled something indistinct from her pillow. James glared at her for a moment before replying "Pardon?"

"Take her to the other room. I need sleep," Lily groaned.

"I got her last night!" protested James indignantly.

"Actually, I did."

James realized with a start that she was right. "Damn," he muttered, and walked tiredly out of the room with his daughter in his arms.

Aurelia was crying still, very loudly, and James was slightly vexed at her. Then he became angry at himself for being angry at a helpless little girl.

He walked all the way down to the living room, where he slumped down onto the couch and tried to fall asleep.

It didn't work. Then he got one of his bright ideas and started to sing.

"Um…"

Or would have, if he could remember any song lyrics besides "Odo the Hero" which hardly seemed appropriate right now.

And then he remembered a song Lily adored, something by the Insects or the Roaches or something like that.

He hummed it at first until he could remember the chorus, and then he remembered most of it after that.

"_Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on bra,_

_La la how the life goes on._

_Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on bra!_

_La la how the life goes on. _

Mm hm hm hm hm hm _to the jeweler's store,_

_Buys a _mm hm hm hm _golden ring…"_

Aurelia was dozing on his shoulder, which would have been cute if James wasn't sleep-deprived and agitated in a tired sort of way. He brushed one of her red curls away from her face and continued to sing.

When he finally stopped singing, he was too tired to get up, so he fell asleep on the couch with Aurelia in his arms.

* * *

Lily held back a squeal at the cuteness. Her husband with bed head, their baby daughter curled in his arms contentedly.

She _had _to take a photo. Hastily she dashed up to the bedroom and grabbed her camera, snapping a photo that unfortunately woke up both James and Aurelia.

Aurelia screamed miserably, and James wordlessly handed her off to Lily before stumbling back to bed.

"In retrospect," Lily mumbled, bouncing Aurelia as she walked around the kitchen and waited for her baby's sobs to die down, "that picture might not have been worth it."

* * *

"You're that sick of her? Really? Leaving a three-week-old with me and Moony so you can go on a little night out?" Sirius grinned. "You do know what we'll probably end up doing to her by accident-"

"You break my baby and I hex you seventeen years into the future," threatened Lily in response.

"Wha-how-_break your baby?_" replied Sirius in amusement. "How do you break a baby?"

"I am sure that you will show us," Remus responded from where he was playing peekaboo with Aurelia (who was really too young to understand the concept). "You have a certain aptitude for breaking things, which is why James and Lily left me in charge."

"I don't break babies!"

"You broke Crookshanks," shot back Lily with a grin, scratching the bowlegged cat behind his ears. "The present I got from Mary. You made him run into a wall after a mouse and now he's probably never going to be the same again."

"Touche, Ev-I mean Potter."

"I know, it's hard to get used to, isn't it?" laughed Lily gaily before hurrying over to Remus and kissing Aurelia on the top of her head. "Mummy loves you, sweetie. Be good for Uncle Moony and your godfather, okay?"

Aurelia tried to grab her nose.

"I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

Remus stared at Aurelia.

Aurelia stared back.

"Staring contest GO!" yelled Sirius in Remus' ear. Remus jumped, and Aurelia screwed up her face and wailed loudly.

"Wow, she can scream," Sirius added conversationally.

"Sirius Orion Black, _we need to keep this baby in one piece!" _snapped Remus before muttering to Aurelia, "Ignore him, he's an idiot."

Aurelia was still crying, so Remus got up and took her into the kitchen.

"See this?" he crooned in a low voice. "That's a toaster. You probably shouldn't touch it until you know what a _burn _is and then you'll be fine."

Aurelia's sobs started to subside.

"And this is a sink. You turn the water on and off, see?" Remus reached with the hand not supporting Aurelia and twisted the handle. Aurelia watched intently, suddenly forgetting to cry.

"On. Off. On. Off."

Aurelia placed her hand in her mouth and sucked on it.

"On. Off. On. Off."

"She's got quite an attention span, hasn't she?" commented Sirius.

"Sirius, I am not going to talk to you right now," Remus turned away from the faucet. Aurelia started to cry again.

Hastily, he turned on the faucet, and Aurelia began to sniffle up her tears. But as soon as she didn't see the water going on and off, she started to wail.

"Oh please no," groaned Remus. "Anything but the faucet."

Sirius grinned. "Want me to get you a chair? I have a feeling that you'll be there for a _looong _time."

* * *

"How did everything go?" asked Lily three hours later.

Sirius grinned. "Moony's entertaining your daughter. You may have a high water bill after this."

Lily and James, both of them slightly bemused, hurried into the kitchen.

"Oh thank Merlin," sighed Remus without turning around. "On. Off. On. Off."

"Remus, what're you-" began Lily.

Remus groaned slightly. "She seems to have a special interest in water. This is the only thing we've been doing for three hours."

Lily giggled. "I see she's inherited your brains, James."

James laughed as well. "Come on, Little Lily, I bet you just needed to be distracted from missing Daddy, hmm?"

Remus handed Aurelia to James, but as soon as she realized that she couldn't see the water she burst into tears again.

"Oh cr-"

"NO SWEARING IN FRONT OF THE BABY!" shouted Lily and Remus together, while Sirius cracked up in the corner.

* * *

**Reviews are wonderful, especially since I only have one. Thanks so much ! You are always so wonderfully supportive.**

**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


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